To Sleeve (or Not to Sleeve) Seres - #2, How My Weight Affects Me

(This is part of a series I posted on my other (formerly anonymous) blog, tobypass.wordpress.com)

As I referenced in my first post, I am currently 6’1″ and 308 pounds. This churns me out at roughly a BMI of 41.

I carry most of my weight around my midsection. The other day I joked with a coworker that my fat is mostly between my ears and my butt. Perhaps surprisingly for a person at my weight, my legs and arms are relatively lean and actually quite muscular. I’m in a 42in waist pants now and my shirts are 2XL but they need to be long because my torso is where my height comes from. My neck is a fabulous 19″!

While I’ve been ‘the big guy’ for about as long as I can remember (first grade?) I’ve always been very active, strong, and engaged in sports. I love to be outside and to go on adventures. The caption here is one my oldest son snapped of me one day when we were out romping around in a nearby park. This actually makes me think of one of the key ways my weight is impacting my life.

I am seeing myself struggle getting around more and more. This is hard to admit. Hard to write. I get winded more easily than I used to — I feel the burn in my butt and thighs far sooner on in walks and hikes. My knees hurt at night after I’ve played hard or exercised. My back spasms up when I try to jog or run. My ankles pop and click as I jog along. I can’t do many pushups or sit-ups, which means I have hard time getting down onto or up from the floor to play with my boys.

Overall — physically — I am struggling. And more and more. I know that some of this can be a product of age (I’m 34). But I also know that I’m at my heaviest weight in my life — and I feel it. Over the past year, I’ve even witnessed myself turning down invitations by friends and acquaintances to go do something active — because I’m worried about my physical limitations or inabilities. Or even moreso, I’ve turned them down because I’m embarrassed of my limitations. I don’t want to hold them back or be humiliated by my lack of physical acumen. This, I know, is only a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I’ve never been one to have a lot of hangups over body image or appearance — but now that my size is actually starting to hinder my ability to be a good dad, to have fun, to do things I want to do, I’m starting to have difficulties. I feel shame about how I look not so much because of how I look — but because of what that means about what I can do.

Next, I do have some medical issues associated with my weight that have cropped up. One is Sleep Apnea. This may have been latent in my life for a long time before my initial diagnosis 4 years ago. I never remember getting really sound sleep as a teenager or young adult — and when I started using the CPAP machine, WOW, I felt amazingly better. Recently I’ve found that I have a pretty severely deviated septum and also really really large tonsils (they pretty much touch all the time). The ENT doctor said both could be fixed in one surgery and that my apnea would probably be helped — but that because of my weight, he couldn’t recommend it. This was an experienced physician in a large city hospital. And his message was: “lose 10 BMI points and this surgery will help you leaps and bounds. At this point, it will be a waste of money.” So that’s fantastic

I have High Blood pressure due to excess weight, and my cholesterol is consistently high (in the mid 200’s most recently), but who knows if that’s primarily because of my diet/weight or family heritage? In any case, I’m on a couple different medications to treat both of those issues. And I’m also taking Metformin in a low dose as a form of appetite suppressant (and I’m not sure if It’s to try to stave off insulin resistance). So far, my blood sugar labs have always come out normal (even if sometimes on the edge) — but I feel as though that is just a ticking time bomb.

Finally, I think my weight is also threatening my longevity – which in turn has implications for relationships with my kids. I feel sad and embarrassed about this. Of course this is related to the previous item but I see it as another effect altogether. If I have 10 fewer years than I might otherwise because of my current weight (as compared to a healthy one), this represents untold relational depth, experiences, wisdom passed, and loved shared. Once I’m into my 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s — we’re talking about the season of retirement and enjoying grandkids. My weight right now is threatening cutting that time unnecessarily short! What a price to pay for a little steak and ice cream today!!

Stringing throughout each of these is the emotional impact of all of these. As I’ve alluded, i feel great shame and embarrassment for where I’ve allowed my body to evolve. I keep my eating secret in many circumstances and I hide the full extent of my addiction to food. I feel depressed and hopeless about my situation more often than not and if I allow it — I can slip into despondence, helplessness, and a sense of victimhood. It’s a terrible state of mind — both in terms of its unhealthiness as well as it’s negative experiential nature. It is unpleasant feeling for me to be the weight I am.

And the truth is probably that It’s a pipe dream for me to imagine that all of these negative thought patterns are gonna just poof into thin air if I were to simply lose weight. My process needs to be both getting healthy physically and emotionally. Just like any addictive process.